Rockstar Vendor

Tag Archives: Gothic

When someone says “destination wedding” I automatically think of a boho style affair, with the bride and groom all in white (her in a floaty gown and him in a white linen suit) walking down a sun-drenched sandy beach barefoot. So you can imagine what a welcome surprise it was to be presented with something that’s the complete antithesis to that. These guys are the epitome of mean, moody and cool!

Maricelis and Omar, who met and still live in New York, were married at Atarazana Restaurant in La Zona Colonial, Dominican Republic. “Our wedding was different because we are different!” began the bride. “Many weddings that use a Rock n Roll concept or theme, base it on English or American rock and our celebration was strictly Spanish! Instead of walking into the celebration area with a typical wedding song, I walked to a Spanish folk metal poem by Txus di Fellatio named Si Yo, Tu.”

I love this shoot because it shows that goth doesn’t always have to be black, black and more black. A splash of colour here and there can really work – yes, a colourful goth wedding is totally possible!

The shoot was actually made up of five very different style directions (you can see the others here) but these three were my favourites, I love the use of flowers and how they can really change the direction of the styling.

January can be a slower month for those of us that work in the wedding industry. Less people get married in winter and so for many industry professionals this is the time when they can stretch their legs and do some experimenting. This is exactly what my friend Lisa Devlin wanted to do when she started to plan this gothic wedding shoot.

“I feel that as a photographer it is important to step back from your busy working photography life and just shoot for fun every now and then”, she wrote. “It did take me the best part of a year to make time for this but in the meantime, I had started a Pinterest board called ‘Shits and Giggles’ of images that I found inspiration but not necessarily wedding related.”

“I have collaborated with Laura Kate O’Rourke before in her role as a stylist but she is also a musician and I find her look fascinating. So we agreed to just pull together a few outfits, head to a location and see what we came up with.”

Mark and Clare were married at The Jacob Henry Mansion in Joliet, Illinois. With a church on-site it was not only the perfect backdrop for their Victorian vintage wedding, but somewhere they could have both their ceremony and reception. They loved their venue and styled the whole wedding around it’s gothic elements.

“We got the idea for theme of the wedding, Victorian Vintage, from my engagement ring”, began Clare. “My ring is a very art deco in style with the diamond sitting deep in the setting, and very unique filigree designed metalwork. We love the antique look of the ring and decided to find the attire, venue, stationery, and other decorations that would go with the theme. Antiques and antique-looking things are so classic that they will never go out of style, and we were hoping to find a theme that we could look back on in 30 years and still fawn over our choices.”

Peacocks were the inspiration for Steph and Jo’s army barracks wedding. Their favourite colours are green and purple so it worked out perfectly! They used peacock feathers throughout their wedding – on the cupcakes, as the centrepieces and as motifs on the stationery.

“We cut out quite a lot of traditions that we didn’t feel were necessary, and we wanted to keep it all as informal as possible”, Steph began. “There were no big speeches, no seating plan, no first dance, no bridesmaids and no real formalities other than the ceremony itself. Our reading was ‘A Lovely Love Story’ by Edward Monkton and we walked down the aisle together to ‘Zelda’s Theme’ from the Nintendo game ‘Skyward Sword’. Instead of having one big cake, we had some GORGEOUS cupcakes that a friend of Jo’s baked for us as our wedding present.”

“Our DIY efforts included me trimming my top hat with feathers, making my own veil, all the buttonholes and the card box. I wired up and assembled all of the jewellery to make my bouquet too. The centrepieces for the evening venue were homemade, and the ‘prototype’ was made by me, but the credit for that goes to Jo’s sister, brother-in-law and best friend as they put them all together. Jo’s brother-in-law also made the backdrop for the dance floor out of fabric and fairylights on a wooden frame, and decorated the entrance with balloons, ribbon and more twinkly lights as an amazing surprise. I cried when I saw it all, it was so beautiful.”

It’s not often that I feature styled wedding shoots these days, quite simply because I have so many incredible real weddings to share with you! However when photographer Gary of Marshal Gray sent over this ‘three brides’ editorial that he shot at Belt Craft Studios, I had to bend my rule. I love the style of this session, especially how odd and slightly creepy it all is. This is certainly not something I see very often in wedding photography.

“As a photographer who primarily shoots weddings, it’s important to me that I mix it up and challenge myself as often as possible”, wrote Gary. “This concept shoot was undertaken with three of my real brides. Michelle Oakley, Laura Tannenbaum and Sam Earp.”